I’m so sorry to have to bring you this news, but sadly, our two little puppies rescued from the market did not pull through. At least their last days were filled with love and kindness thanks to their lovely guardian, Guangzhou vet John Wu. Rest in peace sweet Hope and Shame. We won’t let your deaths be in vain.

The market also doubles as a slaughterhouse – a round metal drum with orange spikes used for “de-furring” the cats and dogs sits just outside a burning cauldron that will be cooking their meat for customers towards lunchtime.

Recently, I visited Maoshan Live Animal Market in Guangzhou with two of our China team, Christie and Rainbow. Such visits are probably the hardest part of our work at Animals Asia, but they’re also among the most important. We must keep monitoring this situation and exposing the truth about these hell-holes. These are my notes from the visit:

Grateful thanks to everyone who rose to the knitting challenge, feverishly creating beautiful mittens for our bears to keep them snug and warm in surgery! It’s no exaggeration to say that we have been inundated with mitts and truly touched by the kindness of you all who heard our plea. We have so many (and lots still coming apparently!) that there may be enough to send to other bear groups working in the field – it’s just wonderful that so many bears in so many countries can now benefit from people thousands of miles away who listened and responded to our cry for help.

I still believe in miracles, but today the miracle went to someone else. As we held Willow’s paws, while Heather injected the fluid that would end his life, we wept. It hardly seems a week ago to the day when we were all so hopeful as this brave bear was into his third day of recovering from the massive tumour removed from his liver.

In December 2007, full-page reports appeared over three days in Hong Kong's Chinese-language Wen Wei Po newspaper, the mouthpiece of the Chinese Government in Hong Kong. The reporter undertook a four-month undercover investigation with the help of Animals Asia, and wrote a series of features that exposed the true horrors of bear farming today.

Lovely Simba is continuing to make a big impression on his fellow residents at the sanctuary. Here he is meeting Kevin, who is also three-legged. As you can see, Kevin’s not too sure what to make of this little golden scallywag, but he’s clearly enthralled!

A few days ago, I offered to foster three-legged Simba in my room. A little golden cross-breed, Simba was brought into the Chengdu bear sanctuary by his owner after he’d been run over by a car and badly hurt his back right leg. Theoretically a bear sanctuary rather than a dog and cat rescue centre, we do offer the occasional “outreach” programme for times like this where animals are clearly in pain or distress.

The best sight in the world yesterday was walking in to the hospital recovery room and watching Willow eagerly slurping his fruity shake from the hands of our beaming vet, Heather. Bright and alert and standing on all four paws in his recovery cage, Willow is now on his third day of a new life following the removal of a 4.3-kg tumour from his liver.